Devices and methods of this type are, for example, used for rapid prototyping, rapid tooling or additive manufacturing. An example of such a method is known by the name “selective laser sintering or laser melting”. Therein, a thin layer of a pulverulent building material is repeatedly applied and the building material is in each layer selectively solidified by selectively irradiating with a laser beam.
Such a method is, for example, known from EP 0 737 130 B1. In this method, a pulverulent building material is layer-wise selectively solidified in such a way, that together with the object a container wall enclosing the object is produced. The object built in such a manner can, after completion, together with the unsolidified powder surrounding it, be removed from the device in the container.
Furthermore, in DE 102006026756 B4 a method for producing big molded objects is described, wherein two boundary walls of the molded object are produced first and the intermediate space is then filled with material. The generation of the walls thereby takes place by material output at a nozzle.